Serenade (poems)

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Serenade

Slauerhoff serenade.gif

Cover of second edition
Author J. Slauerhoff
Country Netherlands
Language Dutch
Genre Poetry
Publisher The Halcyon Press (first ed.)
Publication date
 1930
Pages 37
Preceded byYoeng Poe Tsjoeng (1930)
Followed by Soleares (1933)

Serenade is a volume of poetry by Dutch poet J. Slauerhoff. First published in 1930, the poems in the collection are mostly personal and lyric poems. Critics have noted that some of the poems are inspired by 19th-century French poetry and are sexual in nature, and they have responded in various ways, with assessments ranging from "childish" to "pure lyric". The themes of desperation and the desire to escape bourgeois life, common in Slauerhoff's other poetry, are found in Serenade as well, and two of the poems were used in an obituary for the poet, who died eight years after the publication of this volume.

J. Slauerhoff Dutch poet, writer and doctor

Jan Jacob Slauerhoff, who published as J. Slauerhoff, was a Dutch poet and novelist. He is considered one of the most important Dutch language writers.

Contents

Content

The collection comprises 27 poems of between 6 and 48 lines. Four of the poems form a tetralogy called "For the children", containing a creation myth, a poem in which the dead lovingly address children, a narrative poem about a child that fell from the stars, and a poem in which a child compares the stars to a herd of animals and questions why they do not wander.

A tetralogy is a compound work that is made up of four distinct works. The name comes from the Attic theater, in which a tetralogy was a group of three tragedies followed by a satyr play, all by one author, to be played in one sitting at the Dionysia as part of a competition.

Creation myth symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it

A creation myth is a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it. While in popular usage the term myth often refers to false or fanciful stories, members of cultures often ascribe varying degrees of truth to their creation myths. In the society in which it is told, a creation myth is usually regarded as conveying profound truths, metaphorically, symbolically and sometimes in a historical or literal sense. They are commonly, although not always, considered cosmogonical myths – that is, they describe the ordering of the cosmos from a state of chaos or amorphousness.

Many of the poems discuss sexual love. P. N. van Eijck noted that compared to earlier poems by Slauerhoff the speaker seems to adopt a less antagonistic attitude toward the women addressed in the poems, and figures as a lover (albeit a powerless and unsatisfied one) rather than a desperate man who opposes everything on principle. [1] Van Eijck notes the dependence of many of the poems (and that of his Saturnus) on the French poetry of the 1850-1900 period, and considers their genesis to be mostly sexual. [2]

Other readers focused on the sense of desperation, of never being at home, that is found in some of the poems; A. G. W. Severijnen cited from two poems in Serenade in an obituary on the occasion of Slauerhoff's death. In "De voorpost" ("The outpost") and "In mijn leven..." ("In my life"), Severijnen sees Slauerhoff's disgust with ordinary bourgeois life, the desire to escape the mundane and to wander the earth. [3]

Publishing history

First published in 1930 by The Halcyon Press of Maastricht and Brussels (with E. du Perron having corrected the manuscript [4] ), it was reprinted four times by A. A. M. Stols (Maastricht/The Hague, in 1938, 1942, 1946, and 1954), and twice by Emanuel Querido (Amsterdam, 1978 and 1982). It was published (unchanged from the first edition) in 1982 by Nijgh & Van Ditmar as part of Slauerhoff's collected poetic works. [5]

E. du Perron Dutch writer

Charles Edgar du Perron, more commonly known as E. du Perron, was a famous and influential Dutch poet and author of Indo-European descent. Best known for his literary acclaimed masterpiece Land van herkomst of 1935. Together with Menno ter Braak and Maurice Roelants he founded the short-lived, but influential literary magazine Forum in 1932.

"Manuscript" is a broad concept in publishing, that can refer to one or both of the following:

A. A. M. Stols was a Dutch printer and publisher, known best for his limited bibliophile editions of Dutch poetry.

Critical responses

De Voorpost
Mijn belegerd leven lijkt soms een voorloopige
Vestiging voor een toekomstig rijk;
Ik moet het houden, doe vaak wanhopige
Pogingen om ontijdig op te breken
Als ik lijd aan 't heimwee naar de zalige streken
Die ik verdedig en zelf nooit bereik.

The Outpost
My beleaguered life sometimes resembles a temporary outpost of a future kingdom; I have to defend it, often make desperate attempts to leave my post prematurely when I suffer of homesickness for the blessed realm that I defend, and never reach.

Hendrik Marsman thought that on the whole Serenade was bad, full of trivial material, and written in a very pedestrian style—the best that could be said about a lot of the poems was that they were not awful. Particularly the fourth poem of the "For the children" cycle invoked his wrath; he thought it childish. Marsman also commented that he just could not get used to Slauerhoff's rhythm with its frequent syncopation, masculine rhymes, and monosyllabic phrases. The collection's bright side is a half a dozen poems which, according to Marsman, are Slauerhoff at his most powerful and personal. [6]

Hendrik Marsman Dutch writer

Hendrik Marsman was a Dutch poet and writer. He died while escaping to Great Britain, when the ship he was sailing on, the S.S. Berenice, either suffered a fatal engine-room explosion, or was torpedoed by a German submarine which mistook Berenice for another vessel.

E. du Perron responded directly to Marsman's commentary in a lengthy review of Slauerhoff's poetry. Du Perron sees no weak spots in the collection, liking even the poems that Marsman did away with as childish. He separates them in two categories—lighter and of higher tone, and heavier and more serious, and claims to not want to miss a single stanza of Serenade. He noted "De Voorpost" and "In mijn leven..." as among the serious ones, the same poems Severijnen focused on in his obituary. [7] Anton van Duinkerken also cites "Voorpost" as emblematic of Slauerhoff's life and desire. [8]

Long after Slauerhoff's death, Victor E. van Vriesland revisited Serenade and Marsman's critique; van Vriesland argues that Serenade is the best Slauerhoff published before 1930, that he managed to overcome most of the "errors of his virtues". Those errors include capriciousness and a nonchalance intended to show his antipathy against the pose of literariness. In Serenade, van Vriesland argues, Slauerhoff left behind the "anecdotal character" of his earlier work. He praises the collection for its "pure lyric" and its "refined technique" which still retained the unexpected and concise expression he had already demonstrated. [9]

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References

  1. ↑ Eyck, P. N. van (1931). "Verschijningen en verschijnselen I". Leiding (in Dutch). 2: 84–93. Retrieved 3 March 2018.
  2. ↑ Eyck, P. N. van (1931). "Verschijningen en verschijnselen II". Leiding (in Dutch). 2: 173–95. Retrieved 3 March 2018.
  3. ↑ Engelman, Jan (1936). "Letterkundig leven: In memoriam Jan Jacob Slauerhoff". De Gemeenschap (in Dutch). 12: 526–29. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
  4. ↑ Janssen, G. W. F. (1980–1981). "Stols en Du Perron: 'Zo gratis mogelijk'..." Spektator (in Dutch). 10: 97–110. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
  5. ↑ Slauerhoff, J. (1986). Serenade (in Dutch). The Hague: Nijgh & Van Ditmar. p. 37+ii. ISBN   9023674596.
  6. ↑ Marsman, Hendrik (1931). "Slauerhoff: Eldorado". Kort Geding (in Dutch). pp. 39–51. Retrieved 3 March 2018.
  7. ↑ Perron, E. du (1930). "Gesprek over Slauerhoff". Tegenonderzoek (in Dutch). pp. 51–81. Retrieved 3 March 2018. (originally published in De Vrije Bladen, 1930).
  8. ↑ Duinkerken, Anton van (1936). "Kroniek der Nederlandsche letteren: J.J. Slauerhoff". De Gids (in Dutch). 10: 227–36.
  9. ↑ Vriesland, Victor E. van (1958) [1930, 1948]. "Slauerhoff's romantische werkelijkheidszin". Onderzoek en vertoog (in Dutch). pp. 78–89. Retrieved 3 March 2018.
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